Touring Edelbrock's Shop And Foundry

Have You Ever Wondered How They Make This Stuff?

I'm sure many of you have school-aged children. For those who do, have you ever found yourself watching their TV programs along with them? I have. I especially like the programs that take you on a factory tour to see how various items are made, and I'm always amazed at the automation and the machinery that never seems to stop.

Recently, the Super Chevy staff was invited by Vic Edelbrock to take a shop tour of the facilities where everything from heads, intakes, carburetors, and shocks are made and machined. While on the tour, we also had the chance to feast our eyes on the Edelbrock auto collection housed in Vic's garage. At the end of our tour, we were told this was not all there was to see. We had yet to see the foundry where all the raw materials are turned into some of the most precisely engineered automotive performance parts in the world. We were informed that the best way to get to the foundry was on Vic's private plane. Naturally, we jumped at the opportunity to turn a 2 1/2-hour drive into a 20-minute flight to see the most advanced foundry west of the Mississippi river. We witnessed how cylinder heads or intake manifolds are made from the initial design on the engineer's computer to the final porting and polishing on the CNC machines. It's really quite amazing to see how involved the process is from concept to finished product. We had no idea the amount of work it took to manufacture these products. Take a ride with us as we walk through the process from start to finish.

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Touring Edelbrock's Shop And Foundry

Here is how our day started. Dakota Wentz and I boarded Vic's airplane for the 20-minute ride. We were told that Vic has logged more than 5,000 hours in the cockpit.

After a cylinder head or an intake manifold leaves the engineer's computer, here is where it starts its production life. These are sand castings. Do you remember those 3-D plastic models of the human body from science class? That's just what these sand castings are like.

The sand casting heads down the conveyor belt where other intricate castings and molds are added to complete the final product.

Take a look at the bins of aluminum ready to go into the furnace. Besides the aluminum bars, the scrap metal that is knocked off the molds get reused by going back into the furnace.

Here you can see the size of just one furnace at the Edelbrock foundry. Do you think this guy has the hottest job in the world? Dakota and I were melting when these doors opened.

It may be a little hard to see in this picture, but this robotic arm siphons in the molten metal and pours an exact amount each time into each sand casting. It was really impressive to watch the liquid metal being poured each time. It was so hot while standing there, Dakota's eyes were watering.

Here is a shot of Edelbrock employees in action. The finished product comes down a shoot where it tumbles right out of the sand casting. While it's still hot, these employees break off the excess parts of the casting, throw the scrap into a bin, and the manifold goes into another bin where it is heated over the next five days as the sand falls out of the passages.

Thousands of intakes and cylinder heads are now ready to start being machined from this point. After the sand is removed, the rough edges are machined by a robotic arm, which is so fast and so precise, it's amazing to watch.

Here is a close-up shot of some of the heads awaiting shipment. Each day a truck loaded with various products of the Edelbrock line makes its way from Hemet, California, to Torrance.

Once these heads are cast and ready, they are wrapped and shipped to the Edelbrock headquarters in Torrance, California, where they will receive further porting, polishing, and assembly by CNC machines and employees.

Once the semi-finished parts arrive, they are stacked on these carts in front of the CNC machines and are ready to be turned into some finely tuned performance parts. There are rows of CNC machines in the Torrance facility churning out these products.

Once everything is done, they sit in a warehouse waiting to be installed by various hot rodders around the world. This is only one row in the warehouse. There must be hundreds of thousands of parts sitting here awaiting delivery. We weren't able to document how each and every part is made because there simply aren't enough pages in this magazine. But we hoped to show the amazing amount of engineering and quality workmanship of each part made with the Edelbrock name attached to it.

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